District Review and Ratification of New Rule Book
Quizzing has from its origins relied on our rule book as a fundamental source for educating new coaches and quizzers and the primary source for codifying how we conduct quizzes and meets at the church, district, and International Bible Quizzing (IBQ) levels. When prospective coaches and quizzers want to start a new local Quizzing program at their church, we provide them the rule book as the cornerstone to understanding how things work. We all rely on the rule book at all levels of Quizzing to prescribe how to conduct consistent, fair, and dependable quiz meets.
Problems with Current Rule Book
Since our rule book has been around as long as Quizzing and has throughout its lifetime undergone persistent iterative changes, our current rule book, while still a critical part of Quizzing, suffers from internal inconsistencies and poor information architecture. Some of these inconsistencies and organizational problems are minor, and anybody involved in Quizzing for a while understands how to interpret these inconsistencies. However, for those new to Quizzing, these rule book bugs can and often do result in confusion and frustration. Moreover, some errors and other bugs in the rule book are significant enough to render portions of the rule book logically invalid.
Rule book change management has traditionally been conducted by ad hoc committees whose output is a new published version. Tracking changes is usually only possible by comparing content from published versions, which loses the context of the thoughts behind and decision-making process of each change.
Rule book change management has traditionally been conducted by ad hoc committees whose output is a new published version. Tracking changes is usually only possible by comparing content from published versions, which loses the context of the thoughts behind and decision-making process of each change.
Proposed Reorganization Project
While the rule book is essential to Quizzing, its current formatting, structure, and document file type are not. A rule book "reorganization" into a format, structure, and technical type corrects all these problems. Using a consistent textual format containing human-readable and intuitive semantic markup allows the rule book to be more easily consumed by Quizzing participants. This consistency and markup also means the content can be leveraged by software for a variety of purposes including automated validity checking.
With all this in mind, a group of self-described pedantic rule book nerds, under the oversight of the CMA Quizzing Leadership Team (CQLT), began a project in July, 2020 to conduct this reorganization. The group consists of:
With all this in mind, a group of self-described pedantic rule book nerds, under the oversight of the CMA Quizzing Leadership Team (CQLT), began a project in July, 2020 to conduct this reorganization. The group consists of:
- Zachary Tinker (CQLT chair, IBQ meet director, district coordinator, 2015 IBQ championship team coach)
- Gryphon Shafer (district coordinator, CBQZ creator, Inside Quizzing host, IBQ quizmaster)
- Scott Peterson (former district coordinator, Inside Quizzing host, IBQ quizmaster, 2012 IBQ championship team coach)
- Jeremy Swingle (district rules committee chair, 2020 IBQ championship team coach)
Functional Equivalence
The goal and scope of this project was to produce a rule book usable at International Bible Quizzing (IBQ) and district level quizzing that is functionality equivalent (FE) to the most recent, current rule book. FE means is that if someone were to read the completed product of this project's initial version and follow it to the letter, they should render a quiz and meet that is indistinguishable from the majority of quizzes and meets at IBQ.
Given the buggy and inconsistent nature of the current rule book, this goal is actually impossible in a complete sense because there are instances where the rule book contradicts itself and other instances where IBQ does not always follow exactly what's in the current rule book.
To resolve these situations, the group adopted the following policy:
Given the buggy and inconsistent nature of the current rule book, this goal is actually impossible in a complete sense because there are instances where the rule book contradicts itself and other instances where IBQ does not always follow exactly what's in the current rule book.
To resolve these situations, the group adopted the following policy:
- Where the rule book contradicts itself, the group wrote language in the new rule book such that the resulting quizzes and meets will match IBQ
- Where IBQ does not follow the rule book, the group will retain the intended definitions from the current rule book (which may be reworded or rewritten for clarity)
Ongoing Change Management Tracking
While this reorganizing will correct existing problems, we want to prevent such problems from creeping back into the rule book over what we expect will be continued successive iterative changes over the, God willing, many future years of Quizzing's existence. We also want to make rule book change proposals public, the process of debating and amending proposals transparent, and notification of these discussions universally reliable to all.
Therefore, the reorganization team conducted the rule book reorganization within a GitHub project, writing sections of the rule book as separate text files. These text files use a customized form of Markdown and therein embedded English-Script. These source files are thus easily human-readable and human-editable but also be easily parse-able by software. Every rule can be metadata tagged for easy slicing based on a given quizzing situation. Moreover, the group created rulebook "layers" for different types of content. For example, there's a layer of pure rules and another for examples and another for commentary. And because all the source is software parse-able, software was written to automatically generate a "just layer 1 PDF" or "all layers PDF".
Since all content and data are in these text files on GitHub, they are revision controlled. We can leverage GitHubs's issue, commenting, and pull request technology for ongoing rule book maintenance, providing a completely open, transparent, and universally accessible means for anyone to be notified of and participate in rule book changes at whatever level of engagement they want. The content and software is being released under an open license, meaning districts (and really anyone) could fork the project for their own local purposes if desired.
There is a section at the end of this new rule book that details the change management process.
Therefore, the reorganization team conducted the rule book reorganization within a GitHub project, writing sections of the rule book as separate text files. These text files use a customized form of Markdown and therein embedded English-Script. These source files are thus easily human-readable and human-editable but also be easily parse-able by software. Every rule can be metadata tagged for easy slicing based on a given quizzing situation. Moreover, the group created rulebook "layers" for different types of content. For example, there's a layer of pure rules and another for examples and another for commentary. And because all the source is software parse-able, software was written to automatically generate a "just layer 1 PDF" or "all layers PDF".
Since all content and data are in these text files on GitHub, they are revision controlled. We can leverage GitHubs's issue, commenting, and pull request technology for ongoing rule book maintenance, providing a completely open, transparent, and universally accessible means for anyone to be notified of and participate in rule book changes at whatever level of engagement they want. The content and software is being released under an open license, meaning districts (and really anyone) could fork the project for their own local purposes if desired.
There is a section at the end of this new rule book that details the change management process.
Reorganization Approval and Ratification Process
In November 30, 2020, the reorganization group submitted to the CQLT a rule book for their review and approval. The CQLT carefully reviewed and discussed the submission, and on December 24, 2020 they approved it, moving it on to a final step: district ratification.
With past rule book changes, there was no district ratification step. However, due to the fact that this reorganization is significant (although maintaining functional equivalence) and sets up an ongoing change management process, the project's work group and the CQLT felt that obtaining district ratification is warranted.
Here's how this will work: Every district is receiving this message which contains links to various points within the GitHub project containing the new rule book. Every district is encouraged to read through the content and submit feedback. (See detailed instructions below.) The members of the working group will respond to this feedback. The deadline for filing comments will be 3 calendar months from now, meaning the last day for feedback should be April 7, 2021.
With past rule book changes, there was no district ratification step. However, due to the fact that this reorganization is significant (although maintaining functional equivalence) and sets up an ongoing change management process, the project's work group and the CQLT felt that obtaining district ratification is warranted.
Here's how this will work: Every district is receiving this message which contains links to various points within the GitHub project containing the new rule book. Every district is encouraged to read through the content and submit feedback. (See detailed instructions below.) The members of the working group will respond to this feedback. The deadline for filing comments will be 3 calendar months from now, meaning the last day for feedback should be April 7, 2021.
Ratification Results
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When a district's coordinator (DC) confirms to his or her satisfaction that the PDF represents FE to the current rule book, that DC will notify Zachary of his or her district's ratification of the PDF. Once Zachary receives ratification notification from over 66% of the "active" districts, then the new rule book is ratified. The deadline for receiving votes from DCs will be 1 month after the deadline for filing comments, therefore by May 8, 2021. Any "active" district not casting a vote by this deadline will be considered "inactive" for the purposes of this vote. ("Active" means districts that responded to the CQLT's email sent October 30, 2020.) Any DC voting against ratification will be required to provide 1 or more explicit reasons for their vote.
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Results are updated every few minutes. If your vote does not show up within 5 minutes please contact the CQLT.
The new rule book in full is built automatically into PDF, HTML, and Markdown files for easy downloading, printing, and reading:
https://github.com/gryphonshafer/Quizzing-Rule-Book/releases/latest/download/rule_book_full.pdf
https://github.com/gryphonshafer/Quizzing-Rule-Book/releases/latest/download/rule_book_full.html
https://github.com/gryphonshafer/Quizzing-Rule-Book/releases/latest/download/rule_book_full.md
These "full" builds are each internally sufficient to read independent of any other content within the project.
As you are reviewing, if you have any questions about anything, a great way to provide feedback is via a GitHub comment to the pull request covering the entire project. This sounds complicated, but it's fairly straight forward. First, here's a link to the pull request on GitHub:
https://github.com/gryphonshafer/Quizzing-Rule-Book/pull/64/files?diff=unified&file-filters%5B%5D=.md
This link will show you the full pull request, but it will collapse all files that aren't Markdown source, and it'll also scroll you down the page a bit until you reach the first core rule book file. (All core rule book files are noted as being under the "content/rule_book" directory.) From here, you can read the source content.
To provide feedback, you'll need to create a GitHub account. Click on "Sign up" in the upper-right corner of the page to create an account. After you login, click the above pull request link to return to the pull request.
To submit a question, comment, or other feedback mouse-over that content. You'll see a blue "+" button appear to the left of that line. Click that "+" to open up a comment form. We 4 project developers will respond to any feedback, potentially creating subsequent versions of the content as necessary.
Please reach out if you encounter any questions or problems. Ideally, we'd like to receive feedback via GitHub because the feedback, subsequent comments, and resolutions are all tracked, public, and transparent. But if you run into any problems being able to submit feedback, please email for assistance.
Through this request, the CQLT is asking all districts to share this information freely with as many people in your district as you can. The more feedback the development team receives the better this revision can become. We are confident in the revisionary efforts as taken so far by the development team and are excited to move into phase four of the process for replacing the 2018 rulebook with this newly developed, functionally equivalent, and cleaned-up rule book.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to either the development team through GitHub or the CQLT by emailing us at leadershipteam@cmabiblequizzing.org
https://github.com/gryphonshafer/Quizzing-Rule-Book/releases/latest/download/rule_book_full.pdf
https://github.com/gryphonshafer/Quizzing-Rule-Book/releases/latest/download/rule_book_full.html
https://github.com/gryphonshafer/Quizzing-Rule-Book/releases/latest/download/rule_book_full.md
These "full" builds are each internally sufficient to read independent of any other content within the project.
As you are reviewing, if you have any questions about anything, a great way to provide feedback is via a GitHub comment to the pull request covering the entire project. This sounds complicated, but it's fairly straight forward. First, here's a link to the pull request on GitHub:
https://github.com/gryphonshafer/Quizzing-Rule-Book/pull/64/files?diff=unified&file-filters%5B%5D=.md
This link will show you the full pull request, but it will collapse all files that aren't Markdown source, and it'll also scroll you down the page a bit until you reach the first core rule book file. (All core rule book files are noted as being under the "content/rule_book" directory.) From here, you can read the source content.
To provide feedback, you'll need to create a GitHub account. Click on "Sign up" in the upper-right corner of the page to create an account. After you login, click the above pull request link to return to the pull request.
To submit a question, comment, or other feedback mouse-over that content. You'll see a blue "+" button appear to the left of that line. Click that "+" to open up a comment form. We 4 project developers will respond to any feedback, potentially creating subsequent versions of the content as necessary.
Please reach out if you encounter any questions or problems. Ideally, we'd like to receive feedback via GitHub because the feedback, subsequent comments, and resolutions are all tracked, public, and transparent. But if you run into any problems being able to submit feedback, please email for assistance.
Through this request, the CQLT is asking all districts to share this information freely with as many people in your district as you can. The more feedback the development team receives the better this revision can become. We are confident in the revisionary efforts as taken so far by the development team and are excited to move into phase four of the process for replacing the 2018 rulebook with this newly developed, functionally equivalent, and cleaned-up rule book.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to either the development team through GitHub or the CQLT by emailing us at leadershipteam@cmabiblequizzing.org